The present invention relates to fiberizing disks used in rotary fiberization processes to fiberize molten fiberizable materials, such as glass, and, in particular, to multi-component fiberizing disks with reusable components that can be disassembled after service and reassembled with replacement components to form new multi-component fiberizing disks. The multi-components fiberizing disks of the present invention permit one or more of the separate components of the fiberizing disks to be made of different metal alloys to reduce costs and possibly extend the service life of the multi-component fiberizing disks.
Various fibrous products, such as fibrous insulation products, are made from fibers produced by rotary fiberization processes wherein a fiberizable material is liquefied by heat to make it molten and delivered to the interior of a rapidly rotating fiberizing disk which typically rotates at several thousand revolutions per minute. There the molten fiberizable material is fiberized by passing the molten fiberizable material through a plurality, typically hundreds or thousands, of relatively small diameter fiberizing holes in a peripheral annular sidewall of the fiberizing disk to form fine molten streams of the fiberizable material which are cooled to form fibers of various selected diameters. The fibers thus formed are then collected. The term "fiberizable materials" includes materials which can be fiberized by the processes outlined in this paragraph, such as but not limited to glass, polymeric, mineral and other organic and inorganic materials.
When forming fibers from materials, such as glass and other fiberizable materials, which are highly corrosive and must be heated to high temperatures to liquefy the materials and make the materials fiberizable, several problems are presented. As the molten corrosive fiberizable materials pass through the small diameter fiberizing holes to be fiberized, the fiberizing holes are corroded and enlarged over the service life of the fiberizing disk. Since fiber quality is a function of the hole size of the fiberizing holes, once the size of the fiberizing holes has been increased to a certain diameter, the quality of the fibers produced with the fiberizing disk becomes unacceptable for the product being produced and the fiberizing disk must be taken out of service.
The fiberizing disks, used to fiberize these highly corrosive, high melting point materials such as glass, have typically been made from high strength, corrosion resistant alloys, such as nickel, cobalt and carbide based alloys, by casting the fiberizing disks. While these alloys perform satisfactorily, there has been a desired to extend the service life of these fiberizing disks by using even higher strength more corrosion resistant alloys to form the fiberizing disks. Thus, to extend the service life of the fiberizing disks, the fiberizing disks have been made of oxide dispersion strengthened metals wherein the metals matrix includes a dispersion of small hard oxide particles (dispersoids). However, the use of oxide dispersion strengthened metals to lengthen the service life of the fiberizing disks also presents problems. These alloys are considerably more expensive than the nickel, cobalt or carbide based alloys otherwise used to form the fiberizing disks and where composite fiberizing disks have been made to reduce the costs of the fiberizing disks, as in U.S. Pat. No. 5,118,332, the components have been tenaciously joined by transient liquid phase bonding thereby requiring each of the fiberizing disks to be processed as a whole to recover the spent alloy after the service life of the fiberizing disk.
In a typical manufacturing operation, numerous fiberizing disks are concurrently at a different stage of an operating cycle: a number of the fiberizing disks are being cast; a number of fiberizing disks are being machined; a number of fiberizing disks are having fiberizing holes formed therein; a number of fiberizing disks are being transported to the manufacturing operation; a number of fiberizing disks are in inventory at the manufacturing operation; a number of fiberizing disks are in use; a number of used fiberizing disks are in inventory to be processed to recover spent alloy; a number of fiberizing disks are being transported to the alloy recovery location; a number of fiberizing disks are being cleaned for alloy recovery; and a number of fiberizing disks are being processed to recover spent alloy. Thus, it can be seen that there is a great deal of expensive alloy currently required to maintain a rotary fiberization production line operating continuously with an ample supply of fiberizing disks and there has been a need to reduce the amount of the more expensive alloy required to extend the service life of the fiberizing disks without losing the benefits obtained from using the more expensive alloys, e.g. the oxide dispersion strengthened metals.